✔ || Save Me [[SEQUEL to DISTRACT ME]]

Chapter 30

{A/N: Yo there's 2 chapters today so go read Chapter 29!}

"Jeongguk?" Taehyung mumbled.

The maknae yawned and then responded, "Yeah?"

Taehyung was laying on his back with Jeongguk's head using his chest as a pillow, arms wrapped around the younger's shoulders. He traced circles in the bare skin of the maknae's back and hummed, "Will you...will you dream with me?"

Jeongguk's heart stuttered and he whispered, "Yeah! I mean, uh, I'll try. I'll have to find the path, so it might take a little while, especially since it's been so long."

The elder nodded forlornly. "I don't want to be away from you, even in sleep."

"You don't have to be," Jeongguk promised, kissing the elder's chest.

"Jeongguk -"

"If you're about to apologize, stop," Jeongguk ordered firmly. "I've forgiven you already."

Taehyung fell silent. The maknae was sure he'd fallen asleep, but then he murmured, "I love you."

"I love you too," Jeongguk replied, trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach. "I'll see you soon, okay?"

"Promise?"

"Promise," Jeongguk said, already half asleep.

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

As soon as Jeongguk opened his eyes, the familiar white of his subconscious welcoming him like an old friend, he set off in search of his lover. The tickle in the back of his brain that always led him to the elder had never fully evaporated, and he threw all of his faith into it as he broke into a run.

He could tell he was close to Taehyung from how eerie his dreamscape was becoming. It felt like a ticking time bomb, warping in and out of focus - in and out of his control. Each step he took was more wobbly - not because he was shaking, but because the ground was splintering beneath him. He looked down nervously, cocking his head at the cracks spidering out from under his foot.

Well shit.

With almost comic grace, the dreamscape literally shattered beneath him and he found himself freefalling.

You know the feeling of tripping? When everything around you becomes suspended for a moment, but it's too short to really appreciate just how terrifying it is?

This was not that.

Jeongguk's mouth hung open in a soundless scream, arms windmilling above him as he reached for purchase that wasn't there. It was nothing but black, black, black, and he was going to keep falling until he was no longer in his head, no longer in Taehyung's, but in some place between Earth and hell, his subconscious trapped there forever.

Not today, motherfucker.

Baring his teeth in determination, Jeongguk lurched his body until he was falling with his feet pointing downward, using all the knowledge he'd learned with Eden and by himself to will a cliff face into existence. It appeared slowly, too slowly, and just as Jeongguk reached for it, he was too far away to grab it. Cursing, he pursed his lips. Now that it was just the darkness and him, the initial terror of his fall slipped away. It all made him feel like he was in Alice in Wonderland, and Jeongguk actually managed to laugh at that, musing what Wonderland he'd find himself in if he ever reached some type of ground.

And then he grinned victoriously. Fine, if he couldn't make something to grab, he'd just make something to land on.

Working quickly because he could feel his control slipping more and more the farther he got from his dreamscape, he created a platform about ten meters below him.